Surveillance of the Incidence of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) with Prevalence Data: Theory and Application to Diabetes in Denmark

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method to detect secular trends in noncommunicable disease incidence using prevalence data, demonstrated through application to diabetes in Denmark, avoiding costly follow-up studies.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical approach for estimating disease incidence trends from prevalence data without the need for longitudinal follow-up.

Findings

Method successfully applied to Danish diabetes data

Detected significant secular trends in diabetes incidence

Provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional incidence studies

Abstract

Secular trends of the incidence of NCDs are especially important as they indicate changes of the risk profile of a population. The article describes a method for detecting secular trends in the incidence from a series of prevalence data - without requiring costly follow-up studies or running a register. After describing the theory, the method is applied to the incidence of diabetes in Denmark.